Facebook's privacy controls are present but may not be set to your liking. Take control of who can tag you in posts and media.
If you have friends who love to upload pictures to Facebook, chances are that you get tagged pretty often. But sometimes you don't want others to be able to share pictures of you without prior permission. By default, Facebook lets friends tag you in posts, in photos that look like you, and check you in to places that you haven't visited. Here's how to put a stop to any (or all) of these tag-happy features:
Step 1.Nicole Cozma/CNET
Step 1: Click the arrow in the top right-hand corner of Facebook on the Web and choose Settings.
Steps 2 and 3.Nicole Cozma/CNET
Step 2: Choose Timeline and Tagging from the left-hand menu.
Step 3: In the third section of text, you adjust the settings for reviewing tags, who can see those tags, and whether or not you should appear in tag suggestions for photos.
Two new Google Wallet features you don't want to miss
Here's how to set up the new low-balance alerts and automatic transfers in Google Wallet.
Google Wallet saw a recent update that added two useful and much-needed features.
First, low balance alerts have been added, so you can get a notification when your account reaches a specific dollar amount.
Second, there is now a way to top off your account with automatic balance transfers. Here's how to get started with both:
Low balance alerts
Low balance alerts can prevent you from experiencing that embarrassing moment at checkout when the cashier tells you that your payment has been declined, by warning you so you can top up in time. Here's how to set them up:
Step 1: Tap the left slide-out menu and pick Wallet Balance (or tap your balance amount if you're on the main Wallet screen).
Wallet balance screen.Nicole Cozma/CNET
Step 2: Press Low Balance alert. Check the box next to Receive Low Balance alerts.
Low balance alerts.Nicole Cozma/CNET
Step 3: Enter the amount that will trigger a low balance alert. Press the back arrow in the top left-hand corner to save.
Automatic transfers
Whether you're adding money to your Google Wallet for weekend festivities, or just using Wallet as another savings method, here's how to set up automatic transfers:
Step 1: Tap the Add money button from the main screen and then press on "Set up a recurring transfer."
Recurring transfer screen.Nicole Cozma/CNET
Step 2: Enter the amount and then pick a frequency (weekly, once every two weeks or once a month) and the starting day of the week.
Step 3: Press the Review button in the top right-hand corner. The review screen will show you all of the details and you just need to tap Save to make initiate auto transfers.
Six tips to know before converting your old electronics into cash.
James Martin/CNET
So you're getting a new cell phone, huh, maybe even the iPhone 6 or 6 Plus, or perhaps the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, Note Edge, or Google Nexus 6? Terrific. In that case, you may want to offload your old phone to make way for the new, and chances are good you'll be able to recoup at least some of the cost by selling or trading in what came before.
Even if you're not in the market for a new device this fall, owners of ancient, cracked, and broken devices that won't even turn on can still cash in on this promise of recompense. Here are some practical tips about the different ways you can convert your phone into at least a little bit of cash, pointers that typically apply to big-ticket electronics, too, like digital cameras and laptops.
I wouldn't count on financing a Hawaiian vacation for your efforts, but depending on how much you hoard or how savvy you sell, the dollars could really add up.
How much can you get?
Whether you're talking trade-ins through a retail store (Apple, Best Buy, GameStop), carrier, or some other online site, the questions will remain the same: Is it in good or poor condition, is there water damage or screen cracking, what is the storage capacity, and which carrier is it with? All these factor into your final offer, so long as the details check out.
Premium smartphones in good working order, with the original packaging, could sell for around $350, or possibly higher if you offload it directly to a buyer through Craigslist or eBay. You'll typically get more for newer models, unlocked phones that aren't tied to a specific carrier, and in-demand colors.
Yet even your old broken flip-phone can get you at least a dollar if you take it to the right spot, so you won't wind up completely empty-handed, particularly if you have a whole stash of them.
1. Raid the closet
As long as you're planning to cash in on one phone, you may as well look for other dusty, rusty electronics you forgot you had.
Holding on to a phone you're no longer planning to use makes good sense. You never know when you or a family member or friend will need a spare, but at some point, it'll be time to let go. When you add up the old cell phones, cameras, and laptops you have at home, you might find a nice little stash to sell.
2. Don't stress if it's broken
How much money would you expect to get for a cruddy old handset with chipped paint and evident marks of wear and tear? Or for an iPhone with a cracked screen? For most Web sites and trade-in programs, the answer is a big, fat zero. However, if you're smart and don't mind a little driving, you're almost guaranteed to get at least a little pocket change through one vendor.
EcoATM is a physical kiosk in malls across America where you can sell your cell phones and sometimes tablets. In a nutshell, EcoATM scans your phone and compares it with a database to make an offer based on the phone's market value and current condition. If you accept -- and yes, you can also decline -- the machine spits out money on the spot.
It does require a driver's license and a thumbprint scan to use, and it takes a picture of you as well, for security measures, and to help guard against theft and fraud.
Using the EcoATM does require you to trudge all the way over to the mall to use, but it's often the only option that will pay for your very old or broken phones.
3. Shop around. Really.
EcoATM is a terrific resource, but it isn't the only one. In fact, the electronics resale space is positively packed. Big-box retailers like Best Buy, RadioShack, Amazon, and GameStop all have buy-back programs, as do the wireless carriers.
Unfortunately for the lazy seller (me), no single service is more reliable or offers a better deal than all the others. Plain and simple, you just have to shop around. It's worth mentioning again that prices vary by condition and by demand -- you'll get less for a handset with water damage, and more if it's a flawless phone right out of the box.
To illustrate the fluctuations, I checked the price of four popular phones on five different services, plus Apple's own trade-in program, which is managed by refurb industry player Brightstar. These sample handsets include a flawless AT&T 16GB iPhone 5 in Space Gray, a cracked-screen version of the same device, a 16GB black Samsung Galaxy S4 on Verizon, and a 32GB black LG G2 and in all cases but one reflect each service's highest possible resell price.
SAMPLE CELL PHONE TRADE-IN VALUES
iPhone 5S AT&T (16GB), gray, flawless
iPhone 5S AT&T (16GB), gray, damaged screen
Samsung Galaxy S4 Verizon (16GB), black, flawless
LG G2 Verizon black, 32GB, flawless
EcoATM
$260
$100
$110
$62
Best Buy
$300
Recycle only
$125
$95
Amazon
$312
N/A
$185
$186
BuyMyTronics
$286
$65
$111
$111
Gazelle.com
$245
$100
$110
$100
Apple (Brightstar)
$320
$92
N/A
N/A
Not every service takes every phone, and some are still expanding their portfolios to include more popular devices. You may find there's no trade-in value posted yet for brand-new phones that owners haven't had a chance to offload.
If you're planning to sell a bundle of phones and you don't mind putting in the research time, check three or four online spots before hitting an EcoATM, your carrier, or another brick-and-mortar store. Armed with comparison pricing, you'll be able to decide on the spot whether to take the offer in person or take the digital sale. (I've never tried negotiating with a brick-and-mortar against online pricing, but if you have, let me know how that goes.)
One Web site, Sell My Cell Phones, promises to compare top online sellers for you, and is a fair place to start if you're short on time, though it doesn't include carrier trade-in offers or EcoATM, and it didn't seem to actually scour the full range of resellers.
Craigslist and eBay are two other great options for selling electronics to strangers, though this method requires more effort on your end to manage in-person meetups or shipping yourself.
4. Know how you're getting paid
Before you sell a phone or any electronic device, consider how you want to receive the funds. Several online vendors may offer you a check, a cash card, or an infusion to your PayPal account. Retailers like Best Buy and Apple will more commonly hand you an in-store gift card, or cash if you have a receipt proving you bought the item there to begin with.
Cell phone carriers apply the value of your trade-in to your next phone, or might assign you credit. EcoATM deals only in cash that, fittingly, is stored inside the locked-down machine, ATM-style.
One important thing to keep in mind: if you opt for an online vendor, you'll have to wait a few weeks to get paid. After you box up the goods and ship them, employees will match the device to its actual condition, to keep any fibbers honest. Only then will they authorize your payment.
5. Never throw old phones away
In the event that you have electronics that nobody else will pay you for, take the high road and recycle. Almost every reseller that takes phones will do it for you, archaic chargers and all.
The benefits of donating old phones are threefold: it clears old gadgets out of your home, it could improve someone else's life, and you won't be directly responsible for throwing toxic chemicals into the dump.
The cell phone's lifespan is typically much shorter than any other category of consumer electronics. Most of us ditch our phones after 18 months, which means that there's plenty of time to plan how you'll keep or dispose of your future phones.
Resellers -- the guys who initially buy your phones from you before selling whole items or parts to someone else -- see a boom right around the winter holidays. If you opt to sell a lot of used electronics online, timing the eventual receipt of your payment with an extra-large bill or purchase could work out in your favor.
YouTube's Music Key takes aim, but doesn't quite surpass Spotify
Music on YouTube is no longer just music videos. Behind the scenes this month, the service has been quietly adding extensive song catalogs to its site with complete discographies that run the full gamut of music genres. The result is YouTube Music, which has been up and running since last week. But that's not all, as Google also unveiled YouTube Music Key, an ad-free version of the feature that includes a subscription to the Google Play Music Service.
How it all works
Let's say you want to hear Paul Simon's music video for "You Can Call Me Al." YouTube's been able to play the video for years, but only recently can you hear play the entire Graceland album it comes from, for free, and with the full blessing of the music label. YouTube Music blends so seamlessly into the rest of the YouTube experience, you'd be forgiven for not noticing it.
If a song has a video, that clip will play as it normally would while you're listening to that track. And if a song lacks video, you'll just see a static image of the album cover in the player. It's all very accessible and easy-to-use, but the "free" element does mean that you'll have to take the ads that come it.
Fortunately, though, there is a way out. For those who would prefer to listen to YouTube Music without pharmaceutical ads popping up between songs, you can pay a monthly fee to make those ads disappear. This subscription feature is what YouTube calls Music Key, and it's currently offered as an invite-only beta.
For a promotional monthly price of $7.99 (regularly $9.99) Music Key subscribers get ad-free access to YouTube's recently-bolstered catalog of streaming music and music videos, including the ability to temporarily store your favorite songs for offline playback on your smartphone. In addition, Google throws in a membership to their music-only subscription service Google Play Music (formerly known as Google Play Music All Access). It's a compelling one-two punch that ties together a traditional, Spotify-like music subscription service (Play Music) with a video-focused service that no one else can match.
How it stacks up
Will YouTube Music and its ad-free Music Key subscription change the way you consume music? Possibly, but not immediately. This doesn't feel like the kind of sea change we felt when Spotify broke loose. What Google has really accomplished here is make everyone question why they would pay for a Spotify or a Beats Music subscription when everything you want to hear is already available on YouTube at no charge.
The YouTube Music Key subscription is just the icing on the cake. If you're one of those people who routinely turn to YouTube as a convenient jukebox and the interstitial ads have become tedious, then Music Key solves a problem for you.
Artist pages on YouTube now include a playlist section for full albums, in addition to the top songs that surface at the top of the page.YouTube
YouTube as music service
YouTube has every reason to call themselves a music service. By any measure, it is an insanely popular destination for music fans. And the fact that its music streams are often accompanied by moving images does not make the catalog any less legitimate than Apple's or Amazon's.
In fact, for many music fans, YouTube has been a safe haven for rare, live, or out of print recordings that couldn't easily be found elsewhere. For example, if you want to hear Stray Cats' full 1981 Live at Montreux performance (and you should), YouTube is one of the few places where it can be streamed and shared.
But more of us know YouTube as a bastion for today's pop music (and viral hits like "Gangnam Style"). And when you click on YouTube's newly unveiled Music tab at the top of both their website and their mobile app, it's clear that Pop music is still front and center. Curated playlists of the latest hits sit alongside automatically generated playlists of trending artists. This isn't Pitchfork. Like the rest of YouTube, popularity triumphs over good taste.
YouTube Music allows you to stream full artist albums, not just the hits.YouTube
Fortunately, YouTube and its parent company know a thing or two about search. Your favorite artists are only a few key presses away, and once you've found them you'll find a listing of not just their music videos, but their albums, top songs, and sometimes even the top cover versions of their songs. Click through to an album, and you have the ability to hear it from start to finish.
Sometimes the songs are associated with a music video but more often than not you're just hearing the music along with a still of the album art. From here, you can save songs or entire albums as a playlist, and like any video on YouTube, it's easy to share the link for others to hear.
Music Key membership
YouTube's Music Key subscription service is a simpler proposition than it sounds. For YouTube fans who already treat the service as their always-running jukebox, Google now offers a way for you to strip away the advertising between music videos in exchange for a low monthly fee. All other YouTube content will still have ads, but so long as you stay in the music tab, most of your streams should be ad-free. To drive this point home, YouTube places this little blue badge next to the video that says "ad-free."
Subscribers to YouTube Music Key can use Google's Play Music service as both a file locker for their existing music library and an ad-free subscription music service stocked with a vast catalog of songs.CNET
To sweeten the deal, Google gives Music Key subscribers access to their Google Play Music service, which is their more traditional Spotify music competitor. They'll also bestow the Android version of the YouTube mobile app with the ability to cache YouTube videos for offline playback or keep playlists running as background music, even when the app is closed or the screen is locked.
Within the YouTube mobile app for Android and iOS there is now a Music tab populated with recommended playlists and a history of previous listens (left). Artist searches (right) now reveal full length albums that can be played entirely within the app.YouTube
The competition
We're lucky enough to live in a time with an embarrassing number of options when it comes to online music streaming. Assuming you haven't already signed up with Spotify, Beats, Rdio, Amazon Prime Music, Slacker, or even Google's own Play Music, there's presently little to make YouTube Music Key stand out.
Really, the best thing I can say about Music Key is that you're probably already using it in its free form. Assuming you have YouTube installed on your phone, there's no new app to download or navigation to figure out.
Perhaps the most glaring deal-breaker for many is Music Key's seeming lack of a family subscription plan. Unlike a Spotify or a Beats Music, there's no family pricing plan yet that would allow you to use this as a blanket music subscription for your whole family. While Google graciously allows you to sign-in on up to 10 devices, you're only allowed to stream from one device at a time.
I should also mention that those devices had better be in the US, Spain, Italy, Finland, Portugal, Ireland or UK, because other territories have yet to be added. Spotify, by comparison, is available in 55 countries.
Another criticism I have is that even though YouTube's catalog is sizable and growing, the tools for discovering new music are pretty blunt compared to most competitors. Oddly, even though the Google Play Music Manager software can crawl through your music library and make insightful recommendations on other music you might enjoy, this same info is seemingly not piped over to YouTube's recommendation engine.
Let's also take a moment to discuss sound quality. YouTube also makes no promises on minimum or maximum bit rate. It's understandable coming from a service that necessarily needs a lot of bandwidth wiggle-room to squeeze video over a cell phone connection. You also have to consider that facets of their music catalog come from user uploads. The bottom line is, if you're concerned about audio entering your precious earholes that is anything less than audiophile quality, YouTube is not the place for you.
Conclusion
YouTube's Music Key subscription is an intriguing mix of services and features that music fans and YouTube regulars may find worthwhile. But for my money, YouTube's ambitious effort to offer entire artist discographies at no cost is the move that will have the largest and most disruptive effect on how we listen to music from this point forward.
4:21 PM
